Some inspiration..

I decided to put together another mini-inspiration board. My first one was compiled when I was still thinking of using turquoise and red as the main colors, and I never made a newer one to reflect the color change to turquoise and clementine orange. I pulled a lot of these pictures from ones that have been sitting on my computer for a while, and was able to use one from my actual venue :)))

The bottom right picture is one from Smilebooth.. if I had my way this would have been the first thing we booked.

Alas, I am poor, and can't afford Smilebooth. But I love the idea and have much more to write about the photo booth topic in the future!

Also.. those puff balls in the middle? Be prepared for a post on those things soon, too.

Ess Tee Dee's

That's the most creative I can be with a title for the first of what I'm sure will be 473982 posts about save the date's, or as us bee's like to refer to them, STD's. And yes, like most people, that still cracks me up. They really need to give you a manual before you start delving into the whole online wedding world.. I was severely confused with all the acronyms here on Weddingbee for a good two weeks when I first started reading.

Anyway, you should all know by now that I'm a planner. When I first started seriously thinking about the save the date's, we still had 18 months until the wedding, at which point we also already had a venue, invites, preliminary guest list, dj, possible photog, and my dress. #overachiever

I quickly came to the conclusion that we MUST have save the date's, 1. because I like making pretty things, and 2. because 99% of our guests are out-of-towners, coming from Philly and various parts of New York. And I was determined for them to be a DIY.

At first I was thinking about doing something with a Scrabble board:

sorry about the blurring!

It's cute in theory but it just looks a little all over the place in reality, at least in my eyes. It would be more in depth than what the picture shows and on the classic board, of course, but still. I'm vain and want our picture on it somewhere. And while we bust out Scrabble weekly and it's definitely "us", it just doesn't fit with what I'm envisioning.

So.. scratch the Scrabble.

Then I thought maybe I could do something with our engagement photos..

...and I quickly realized that I was doing a terrible job at designing them. Don't laugh at how bad these are. They're also kind of boring, and I want something more FUN. Granted I was just messing around for a few minutes to see what I could whip up, but I really want something more us.

So my current (genius) idea is inspired by photo strips.. you know the ones you can get at the mall or some restaurants that are (usually) black and white and you have four vertical frames to fill with shenanigans?

I've seen other couples do something like this for their STD's. I think it's so much fun! I would set up my Mac and take a couple pictures of us, most likely holding hand-made signs saying "save" "the" "date" "6.xx.2012", using one for each frame. After printing, I'd adhere them to some magnet tape and cut them out, so everyone would get a photo strip magnet!!

I don't know why this excites me so much, but it does. Mr. Foxy and I had a mini photo shoot a few months ago using said method of picture taking, so here's a basic idea (sans hand-made signs) of where my mind is off to:

Sorry about the faces. Still not sure why we felt compelled to take a bunch of crazy pictures of ourselves. But you get the idea.

So.. thoughts? What did you do or what are your plans for STD's?

Venue revealed!

I don't really need a big lead in to this because you can just look at my hover cloud/bio thingy and see that we're getting married at the Vandiver. Kind of ruins the surprise, doesn't it?

Anyhoot, I had been looking at the Vandiver Inn for a while. A few things let me know right away that this place could very well be our wedding venue:

1. Fantastic reviews on Weddingbee & Wedding Wire. Check.

2. Their website has a whole section dedicated to weddings.. with basic price points listed. Chhhheck! This hardly EVER happens, at least with most of the venues I was researching. There's usually a fun game where you email or call and wait for a response back that can take days or weeks, and I'm an antsy pants. One place I looked at didn't respond for 5 months.. what?!

4. Those price points listed? Are totally in our budget. BIG CHECK.

3. The day of coordinator (hereto referred to as DOC) answered my email and called within 48 hours. Check check check.

4. It's located in Maryland, on an inlet that leads to the bay. This means water. Lots of water.. and having grown up 10 minutes from the beach, I'm a total sucker for that. :))) Check x10.

Since I was already falling in love without even laying eyes on the place, I made an appointment for Foxy and I to meet the the DOC (who's really more of a quasi-wedding coordinator.. she's seriously amazing) and take a tour of the place. After an hour and a glass of wine, we were sold. Two weeks later we faxed over the signed contract. BAM. Venue: donesky! This totally goes against my usual indecisive nature, but when I just love something that much? I get impulsive and hope it works out.

Some background for you: the Vandiver Inn is an old mansion that is now run as a family owned bed and breakfast and has really seemed to have found a niche in the wedding market. The town it's in is so cute and quaint, like it was taken from some old, historic New England town and dropped in northeast Maryland. The water is two blocks away, and 'downtown' is about four blocks away and full of cute little shops and restaurants. It's almost as if we're getting the upstate New York feel, while still staying in Maryland. Score!

Also? If you sort of recognize the place.. it's because Mrs. Lox just got married there!!

There are two other smaller houses affiliated with the Vandiver Inn, located right next to it. The Vandiver has 8 guest rooms (where Foxy and I + family will be staying), and the two other houses have another 9 rooms total (for more family and wedding party). I LOVE this, because we can all stay together and it will make getting together for the rehearsal (dinner) so so so much easier.

Images via Vandiver Inn

The mansion itself has a very rustic and old town feel, like the town itself. There's a porch that leads into the first floor of the mansion, where the cocktail hour will be. If the weather permits, they can open the doors and windows (that act as doors) so people can mingle both inside and out on the porch. There is also a grassy area with a few tables for people to sit at out front.

Images via Vandiver Inn

The outdoor ceremony location is to the right of the mansion, between the Kent house and Murphy house.

Images via Vandiver Inn

Is it lame that I can already imagine walking down the aisle to that pretty gazebo? (Which makes me think.. how am I going to decorate?!)

And last but most certainly not least, the reception will be in the pavilion just behind the mansion!!

Images via Vandiver Inn

How great is that? It can be open air on nice days (picture on the right) or closed off on crappy days (left), so you don't need to worry about rain. The string lights on the ceiling are already in place, and you can add extra decorations pretty much however you want. To us, it's perfect.

One of the greatest things is that the wife of the family who owns the place (Susan) is also the head chef.  They get all their ingredients from local farmers and produce stands and cook it on site in a kitchen no bigger than a closet, so you know it's fresh. They even have their own herb garden and borrow herbs from neighbors if they need other kinds! How freaking adorable is that?! I just may move here after the wedding.

Oh.. and, lets be honest.. the deciding factor?

There's a street named Red Head Way two blocks away. Um, hello.. meant to be?!

In search.. of a venue

Pretty much the instant Mr. Foxy and I got engaged, I ran out to buy a bajillion wedding magazines and started researching venues. I quickly realized that weddings are wayyy more expensive than I thought they were. I mean, I knew they could be pricey, but couldn't I do a great wedding with all the fixin's near DC for under $10,000?

Oh shut up, Nelson.

Image via Dangerously Awesome

That would be a big fat no. I already knew that we couldn't afford a wedding where I grew up on Long Island, so I decided to look in upstate NY near where Foxy grew up. His parents currently live on one of the Finger Lakes, which I thought would be perfect because there are tons of wineries in the area, and I love me some wine. The only problem is that apparently the Finger Lake region of NY is a huge touristy area. Who knew? Not like I grew up in NY or anything. Bler.

Despite the fact that upstate NY was more expensive than I thought, I kept searching for places up there for us to look at on our July visit to his parents'. In all reality, the average prices up there were on par with or even above what the DC/MD area was offering. But it was pretty and Foxy seemed to really dig the fact that we'd get married upstate. Mostly because we could get Dinosaur BBQ (if you haven't heard of them, look them up then drop what you're doing and go get some NOW) to cater if we had it up there.

My dream wedding vision turned into us having a large tent with hanging lights and lanterns everywhere, preferably at a winery, and serving Dinosaur. They'd bring in a huge BBQ pit to cook all the food in, right there in front of everyone. It would have been amazeballs and it would have been so quintessentially us.

However, I realized that tents are expensive, many places wouldn't let us bring in outside caterers, and I was liking the idea of having to travel 7 hours to get to our wedding destination less and less as time went on. Plus, I really didn't want to plan it from so far away. That just sucks. We ended up only looking at one place while visiting in July, and quickly crossed it off the list. It just wasn't what we were looking for.

So I picked up my DC/Maryland search.


(Sidenote: Even though we're literally about 20 minutes away, I crossed out Virginia because I don't really like Virginia.. nothing at all against anyone who lives there or likes it, but I have this weird name association thing. Like, I refuse to eat from any restaurant named Lardo's (it's real, trust me) or Potbelly... it disturbs me. I really don't want to live on a street like Gun Powder Lane because it's so dismal. So I really don't want to live in Virginia, or get married there, because, well.. it looks and sounds like vagina to me. Sorry guys. It's the truth. I know I have issues. I'm sure Vagina Virginia is a wonderful place to live.)


Back to business. My main criteria was that the catering cost per head had to be under a certain amount for me to even begin to look at it. I was so hell bent on having an outdoor wedding on a Saturday in June; no wonder good prices were/are hard to come by. I found a few places that could be possibilities if some adjustments were made on our part, but the ones I wanted we couldn't afford, and the ones we could afford I didn't want.

And then. Then! We found it. You know that feeling that you get when you find the right dress? Both Foxy and I got that when we found the right venue...

..more to come!

The ones that weren't

So now that I've told you about my dress (!!!!), I thought I'd share a few more dresses that didn't make the cut. I mean, who doesn't love a little more wedding dress porn? I know I do!

Part 1 brought me to Village Bridals, Macy's, and David's Bridal.

Part 2 was a pretty extensive look at the David's Bridal collection.

The very first dress I tried on at DB was what I like to call the "mullet dress".

Oh, baby! Are you nervous yet?

Image via 80's Tees

Anyway, being serious. It's actually called a high-low hemline, because the front is shorter than the back. This dress looked so freaking cute on the model, and I thought that if I got this dress (for really cheap), I could get a kick ass pair of heels (hiii Louboutins). The front looks real cute, right?

DB CT326

However. Different story from the side view. For my first magic trick, I will turn to the side and show you my thick, ever expanding torso.

Yea. It's not that bad, but hive? I'm not that big. And the dress size was definitely right. It just made me look like I weighed 100 pounds more than I already do, and I'm trying to lose weight even now. So.. no. This was not going to work.

The next dress I rather liked. It fit me pretty well, but I knew it wasn't the one. Also.. when I previously showed Mr. Foxy a picture of the dress on the model, he said it looked like a nightgown.

 DB WG9830

I'll admit, he did have a point.

I went on try on a few more dresses at DB, which were so bad that they didn't even warrant pictures. This was one of them:

Oleg Cassini CRL277

I already have a pearish shape, but I seriously looked like a big ol' pear in this dress. A big, albino pear. No thank you. (Also? Foxy thinks all lace looks like a doily. I wasn't really letting that rule my decision, but I didn't want him to just see doilyness on our wedding day.)

Thus ended the David's Bridal extravaganza.

Onto RK Bridal: I honestly don't know the majority of the dresses I tried on there, in part because we weren't allowed to take pictures of me in them and in part because some of them were huge misses. However, the one that was a big contender and competing with my winning Allure dress was this one:

Maggie Sottero style RD1068

I actually had this gem in my dress inspiration section of my wedding binder for a while. Gorgeous. I liked this one about as much as I liked the Demetrios 3137 dress.. high up there, but wasn't getting that warm fuzzy feeling.

And that, my friends, sums up my wedding dress search! I probably tried on a total of about 25-30 dresses before I found mine. How many dresses did you/have you already tried on?